Lessons learned in organising: value the time of everybody

Sounds evident, that in any co-operation everybody’s time is valuable… What’s the news? The key is to always give something to the person you are working with. If you want to do something special with a teacher, be it international superstar or national star, think it through from their perspective first. Almost everybody is interested in new intriguing ideas - that means something cool, different and in some way thought over. Almost nobody is interested in getting just open requests that pile up in the already long todo list. So for doing something new, check these two options:

One good way:

- study what is there already

- think about different solutions and your own ideas, brainstorm them with your friends

- select the plans and ideas you feel you want to make come true

- write your idea out – it makes a difference to have a plan to show, even when it’s a draft

- talk to whomever you want to co-operate with

- repeat as many times as needed and enjoy the ride

One other way:

- call a superstar teacher and ask, if they could make a big project for your scene and say that they probably know best what should be done, so it would be best if they also planned everything

You get the point, I think. From your counterpart’s perspective the former often gives something interesting, the latter usually tends to pile among other open to-do things.

The superstar and actually all the teachers are in many ways just like everybody else in the scene: they are intrigued by interesting ideas and concepts and they also want to do their share of work to make the dance scenes bigger. They already devote a huge amount of time for that goal. Still, they are quite the same as the rest of us, main differences being that for them dancing is usually work and career, and they are very skilled in dancing. Pretty much all are really professional in what they do, and you should respect their expertise – but still provide your own input. It’s always easier to improve a plan, when it has been started and thought over, and maybe somehow tailored to your local scene.

If you are organising things, and you don’t happen to be a superstar dancer, the important thing is to find what you yourself have to offer to promote the dances. You sure have something. Don’t just try to make yet another workshop, but make something that feels, sounds and even smells like something interesting, something that you love. If you don’t have any ideas on what and how to do, team up with other local dancers and you’ll figure out ideas for sure.

For an example: Dax and Alice were in Finland for 4 months in Spring 2008 as I described in the previous blog post. That project was formed pretty much in the way described above. I think together we made a quite an original program which was a product of several discussions, brainstorms and especially lots of work at home.